Finding your flow by letting go

It’s a bright shiny New Year out there!

It’s a bright shiny New Year out there!So much promise.So much opportunity.That’s how newness feels.It’s tempting to take all this freshness and turn it into overdrive. Promising more. Doing more. Pushing more.Trying harder…and then needing to recover.Poor thing, this sweet New Year!

Let's try something else...​​

Don’t get me wrong.Goals are important. Projects engage us in life. Intentions move us forward.

But, if you’re like me, what we most want is flow… That “in the zone” feeling when everything is in sync and our genius is streaming through us.

Living in that magic demands more than trying, planning, and working.It also asks us to let go.

So beginning today, I’m shifting things up.

I still have big plans for growing my life and work.But I’m realizing what must come first.

I need to let something go.

I’d rather just keep building, adding, doing more.My life feels so exciting that way.

Instead I need to surrender a habit.…what’s actually held me hostage.But that I’ve loved. (Oh, ok… been sort of addicted to!)

Instead of trying to beat this stubborn obsession into submission… (in that forceful, overdrive kind of way that, in the end, makes me feel depressed and defeated)I’m taking my own message to heart. I need this truth as much as anyone else.

You see, I have this habit I’ve been noticing for quite a few years now.When it’s running me I feel amped up, on, zinging.

But really, it takes me out of myself, away from my center, into a deluded sense of accomplishment.

I’ve tried to let it go before. Made promises. The usual New Years resolutions.

I’m sure you know what’s always happened.You, too?

So here’s what I'll surrender.I amp up my life by moving fast, driving fast, talking fast.It’s my version of caffeine.It gives me the illusion that I’m getting a lot done… even if I’m just spinning my wheels.

Speeding up on the outside keeps me from listening on the inside.It’s our cultural obsession. It's actually our cultural abuse.

I know it doesn’t really work for the wholeness I want.But it’s habit.And the more we live that way, the more it becomes the new normal.

We don’t really want to feel what’s going on inside. – the frustration or fear or overwhelm – And what would happen if we let ourselves go there?We might implode. Or never stop crying. Or give up. That’s the real terror.

But here’s the wisdom…

Listening inside, tuning into our bodies’ knowing, can take us home.That is… if we’re gentle. Kind. Compassionate with ourselves first, and then others.

So this is my challenge for this year…

I intend to shift away from speeding.

I know, it’s big! But the only way this will happen is to be gentlewith myself when I notice that I’m doing it again.I’m convinced this is the path to the kind of life I want to be living in 2017.

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Mary Campbell

Mary is an intimacy coach, sensuality educator, spiritual counselor, and writer who leads retreats around the globe and privately coaches women and couples. All at the intersection of the sacred and the senses.